John
3:1-17
He arrived in the dark
seeking light. He arrived at night afraid of the light, worried what
others might think if seen in the light of day. He came searching for
insight, for wisdom, for some answers, for truth. He’s heard rumors about
what this man could do: signs and wonders, imbuing the presence of God.
He’s not new to the world of the
spirit, to the religious life. He’s well educated, raised in the faith;
he rose up through the ranks, sits as a religious leader among the people. He’s
a powerful man, commanding respect, a man of influence, with authority, which
makes his appearance—at night—all the more mysterious.
And Jesus knows why. Jesus
knows his heart. Jesus knows his thoughts. Jesus knows the
stirrings of his soul. Jesus knows he’s searching for something.
He’s a religious professional, he knows the stories of his people, he grew up
in community, went to Sabbath school. He was religious by nature and by practice.
He worshipped Yahweh on the Sabbath, observed Torah, and made sure others did
the same. But then he goes to Jesus with a seeker’s heart, a spirit of
curiosity, and the hunger for something, undercover at night, so no one else
would see.
Here’s the truth,
Nicodemus. I’m going to level with you and cut to the chase. I know
you’re looking for the kingdom of God. I know you’re searching for a
world shaped by God’s justice and righteousness. I know you’re looking
for something more, for a better a world, for a deeper connection to your
soul. I know your faith and your religious practices are growing tired, I
know they don’t speak to you anymore. Here’s the truth, Nicodemus: no one
can see the kingdom of God without being re-educated, re-newed, re-born.
“Reborn” “Born-again.” “Born from above.” Whichever way you
want to say it—and any of these would be correct, it’s the same in Greek—the
point is one has to start again. You have to go back to school. You
have to unlearn some things in order to learn new things, kingdom things, about
God, yourself, and the world. This way of God does not come
naturally. You don’t reach the kingdom through a developmental process or
evolution. All the human wisdom and reason in the world can’t lead you
there. All the religious wisdom of the world can’t lead you to that
place—some religious ideas might even stand in the way.
“How can this be?” Nicodemus said. “I don’t understand.”
Being a literalist, he misses the
point—as literalists often do, trying to be, well, literal, choking
truth with the facts. “How can anyone be born after having grown old?”
To which Jesus says, a second time:
Here’s the truth,
Nicodemus. Listen to me. You won’t find what you’re looking for if
you don’t open your eyes to what you cannot see. You can’t enter into the
kingdom, you won’t see the world as I see it, live in it the way I live in it,
love it the way I love it, without becoming a child of the Spirit who wants to
birth something new in you. If you want to live in the natural world, be
a materialist, focus on only the things you see—that’s what I mean by ‘flesh’
natural—that’s what you’ll get. If you want to be a materialist, that’s
fine, but that’s what you’ll get. If you want to see what you cannot see, if
you want to live in the world of God’s Spirit, and be a part of something
infinite and wondrous and beautiful and holy, then you need help, you need the
Spirit. You will find what you’re searching for. But what are you searching for—or better, whom
are you searching for?
Stunned. Nicodemus tries to collect himself, shocked
by what he heard. Jesus knows what he’s doing. Jesus knows he’s
dismantling the foundations of Nicodemus’ life and world. Jesus is
intentionally throwing him into deep existential conflict—because
that is how we learn and come to life.[1] That’s
what the Holy Spirit often does, throws us into conflict. Jesus doesn’t let up, but drives the point home;
he drives Nicodemus deeper into the conflict, deeper into himself. “Do
not be astonished, Nicodemus,” that I said, “You must be born from above.
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not
know where it comes from or where it is goes. That’s what it’s like for everyone
who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:7-8)—open to something wild and wondrous and
completely beyond your control.
“But how can these things be?” Nick objects. “You say you’re a teacher,”
Jesus replies, “and yet you do not understanding these things?”
And so for a third time, Jesus “verily” says:
Here’s the God’s
honest truth, Nicodemus. Listen to me. How can you ‘get it’ if
you’re not being open to what I have to say? I have to explain how the
wind works, how are you going understand how the Spirit works? I have
come to bring you the way of the Spirit, the way of heaven, the way of God’s
kingdom. I have been sent to show you, to teach you, to love you into the
kingdom.
In order to see it, Jesus says to Nicodemus, you have to look at me, keep your
eyes fixed on me. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have the
life of God. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so
that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have the life of
God. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the
world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:14-17).
That’s
what Nicodemus needed to see. That’s also, I suspect, what Nicodemus
was also searching for. “Seek and you
will find” (Matthew 7:7). It’s been said
that to begin the search for God means at some level we have already been found
by God. The search itself says something
about what we really desire in our hearts.
The desire itself tells what we’re searching for and who’s searching for
us. To search, to go off on that
journey, even if it’s in the middle of the night, maybe especially then, is
what matters. It’s the search that matters.
As the novelist Walker Percy (1919-2009) once said, “The search is what
anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own
life. To become aware of the possibility
of the search is to be onto something.
Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”[2] We want to be “onto something,” we want to go
on that search for God. The soul longs for this.
In 1945, in a garbage dump in Egypt,
scholars tripped over a copy of the Gospel
of Thomas. Scholars have known about
this Gospel for centuries, but no one had seen a complete copy of it until
1945. The Gospel dates from as early as 40
AD or as late as 140 AD. In the Gospel of Thomas we find this saying of
Jesus: “If you are searching, you must not stop until you find. When you find, however, you will be troubled.
[But] Your confusion will give way to wonder.
In wonder you will reign over all things.”[3]
See and you will find. Nicodemus found what he was searching for. The
next time Nicodemus shows up in John’s Gospel, is on the Friday of Jesus’ crucifixion.
“Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night,” John tells
us, “also came,”—now in full light for all to see—“bringing a mixture of myrrh
and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus
and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths…” (John 19: 39, 40). By
this time Nicodemus is a follower and a believer, open to the movement of the
Spirit, a witness to the crucifixion, who saw the Son of Man lifted up; with
eyes transfixed upon him, high and lifted up, Nicodemus saw the love of God
descending through him and through him to a world, not to condemn, but to
save.
And here’s the point: to see
what’s happening through this man lifted up on a tree, on a cross, to “see”
what’s really going on in him, to see what God is doing in
him, to see what God is achieving on the cross, to be caught up in God’s
movement in the life of Jesus is to
be born from above and so born again, reborn, reeducated by the Spirit,
transformed. To know this is to be born again and again and again. Shouldn’t this, then, be true of every
follower of Christ?
The
focus here, throughout John 3, is renewal, transformation, what it takes to
experience being born again or from above. It’s about life, new life,
God’s life. The text also identifies those things that hinder life, new life,
God’s life. Here’s the rub: the tough truth we need to face is that there’s
a part of us that resists renewal and transformation, which resists being born
again or born from above. To stand there
with Nicodemus, though, means we acknowledge that at some deep level, we still
haven’t found what we’re looking for, it means that we have to admit that our
lives are in need of change, that we are like Nicodemus searching for light in
the darkness, we need help—all of us. To
be born again means that the life we have from the first or original birth was
and is insufficient; or to be born from above means that the natural life that we
have is insufficient. Something else is
required to help us see. A new form of
birth is required. Something new has to
be given. Something new has to be experienced.
For all of us.
This is why it’s unfortunate and, to
be honest, very frustrating that the term “born-again” has become so
theologically and even politically loaded these days. A Presbyterian minister
and friend, Roy Howard, recently expressed his frustration over the use, even misuse
of the designation “born-again.” I share
his frustration. To experience grace
means that one has been born again and every time we encounter that grace we
are born again. I have no problem
claiming this label. Roy says, “It
bothers me when mainline Christians (of which I am one) say ‘I’m not one of
those born again types’ meaning not a fundamentalist.” I’m not
one of those types, I’m not one of those types of Christians. I’m Christian but not like them. “I get
that,” Roy says, “but if you are not a ‘born again type’ then just what ‘type’
are you and what experience of the living God has occurred in your life that
compels you to be a disciple?” To which
I reply, simply: “Amen!”
As we journey through Lent, as we
search after Jesus, this is a good question for us: what type are you? What type are we as a church? Have we
experienced that grace? Where have you
had an experience of the living God? What compels you to be a disciple?
[1] See the work of James E. Loder, The Transforming Moment
, 2nd edition, (Colorado Springs, CO:
Helmers & Howard, 1989), who identifies conflictual experiences as integral
if not essential to the process of transformation and growth. See also
Kenneth E. Kovacs, The RelationalTheology of James E. Loder: Encounterand Conviction (New York: Peter
Lang, 2011).
, 2nd edition, (Colorado Springs, CO:
Helmers & Howard, 1989), who identifies conflictual experiences as integral
if not essential to the process of transformation and growth. See also
Kenneth E. Kovacs, The RelationalTheology of James E. Loder: Encounterand Conviction (New York: Peter
Lang, 2011).
[2] Walker Percy, TheMoviegoer (1961).
[3] Logion 2, The Gospel of Thomas: Wisdom of the Twin
– A Dynamic Translation, Lynn Bauman, trans.
(Ashland: White Cloud Press, 2004), 8.
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